Henry Darger (1892ndash;1973) was a hospital janitor and an immensely productive artist and writer. In the first decades of adulthood; he wrote a 15;145-page fictional epic; In the Realms of the Unreal. He spent much of the rest of his long life illustrating it in astonishing drawings and watercolors. In Dargers unfolding saga; pastoral utopias are repeatedly savaged by extreme violence directed at children; particularly girls. Given his disturbing subject matter and the extreme solitude he maintained throughout his life; critics have characterized Darger as eccentric; deranged; and even dangerous; as an outsider artist compelled to create a fantasy universe. Contesting such pathologizing interpretations; Michael Moon looks to Dargers resources; to the narratives and materials that inspired him and often found their way into his writing; drawings; and paintings. Moon finds an artist who reveled in the burgeoning popular culture of the early twentieth century; in its newspaper comic strips; pulp fiction; illustrated childrens books; and mass-produced religious art. Moon contends that Dargers work deserves and rewards comparison with that of contemporaries of his; such as the "pulp historians" H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard; the Oz chronicler L. Frank Baum; and the newspaper cartoonist Bud Fisher.
#4403512 in eBooks 2009-07-24 2009-07-24File Name: B007I6NYVQ
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